Tag: Ethnic Cleansing

The Elders’ view of the Middle East

Jimmy Carter | The Washington Post

6 September 2009

During the past 16 months I have visited the Middle East four times and met with leaders in Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza. I was in Damascus when President Obama made his historic speech in Cairo, which raised high hopes among the more-optimistic Israelis and Palestinians, who recognize that his insistence on a total freeze of settlement expansion is the key to any acceptable peace agreement or any positive responses toward Israel from Arab nations.
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Late last month I traveled to the region with a group of “Elders,” including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil and Mary Robinson of Ireland, former prime minister Gro Brundtland of Norway and women’s activist Ela Bhatt of India. Three of us had previously visited Gaza, which is now a walled-in ghetto inhabited by 1.6 million Palestinians, 1.1 million of whom are refugees from Israel and the West Bank and receive basic humanitarian assistance from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Israel prevents any cement, lumber, seeds, fertilizer and hundreds of other needed materials from entering through Gaza’s gates. Some additional goods from Egypt reach Gaza through underground tunnels. Gazans cannot produce their own food nor repair schools, hospitals, business establishments or the 50,000 homes that were destroyed or heavily damaged by Israel’s assault last January.

We found a growing sense of concern and despair among those who observe, as we did, that settlement expansion is continuing apace, rapidly encroaching into Palestinian villages, hilltops, grazing lands, farming areas and olive groves. There are more than 200 of these settlements in the West Bank.

An even more disturbing expansion is taking place in Palestinian East Jerusalem. Three months ago I visited a family who had lived for four generations in their small, recently condemned home. They were laboring to destroy it themselves to avoid much higher costs if Israeli contractors carried out the demolition order. On Aug. 27, we Elders took a gift of food to 18 members of the Hanoun family, recently evicted from their home of 65 years. The Hanouns, including six children, are living on the street, while Israeli settlers have moved into their confiscated dwelling.
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Daily, headlines in Jerusalem newspapers say that certain areas and types of construction would be excluded from the settlement freeze and that it would, at best, have a limited duration. Increasingly desperate Palestinians see little prospect of their plight being alleviated; political, business and academic leaders are making contingency plans should President Obama’s efforts fail.

We saw considerable interest in a call by Javier Solana, secretary general of the Council of the European Union, for the United Nations to endorse the two-state solution, which already has the firm commitment of the U.S. government and the other members of the “Quartet” (Russia and the United Nations). Solana proposes that the United Nations recognize the pre-1967 border between Israel and Palestine, and deal with the fate of Palestinian refugees and how Jerusalem would be shared. Palestine would become a full U.N. member and enjoy diplomatic relations with other nations, many of which would be eager to respond. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad described to us his unilateral plan for Palestine to become an independent state.

A more likely alternative to the present debacle is one state, which is obviously the goal of Israeli leaders who insist on colonizing the West Bank and East Jerusalem. A majority of the Palestinian leaders with whom we met are seriously considering acceptance of one state, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. By renouncing the dream of an independent Palestine, they would become fellow citizens with their Jewish neighbors and then demand equal rights within a democracy. In this nonviolent civil rights struggle, their examples would be Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.

They are aware of demographic trends. Non-Jews are already a slight majority of total citizens in this area, and within a few years Arabs will constitute a clear majority.

A two-state solution is clearly preferable and has been embraced at the grass roots.

Just south of Jerusalem, the Palestinian residents of Wadi Fukin and the nearby Israeli villagers of Tzur Hadassah are working together closely to protect their small shared valley from the ravages of rock spill, sewage and further loss of land from a huge settlement on the cliff above, where 26,000 Israelis are rapidly expanding their confiscated area. It was heartwarming to see the international harmony with which the villagers face common challenges and opportunities.

There are 25 similar cross-border partnerships between Israelis and their Palestinian neighbors. The best alternative for the future is a negotiated peace agreement, so that the example of Wadi Fukin and Tzur Hadassah can prevail along a peaceful border between two sovereign nations.

The writer was the 39th president. He founded The Carter Center, a nongovernmental organization focused on global peace and health issues.

East Jerusalem: the indignity and illegality of eviction

Mary Robinson | The Elders

2 September 2009

As our visit to the Middle East was ending, one of the most poignant encounters we had was with Maher Hanoun and his family in East Jerusalem. For several nights three generations of Hanouns have been sleeping in the street – the women and children in cars and the men encamped on the pavement. They were evicted from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem on 2 August 2009 following an Israeli court ruling.

We brought the family food and drink for Iftar, a special time for Muslims during the month of Ramadan as it is the evening meal at which their daily fast is broken. The moment was rendered even more moving as we heard of the difficulties that the Hanouns have experienced since their eviction.

The family are refugees who have lived in their home in Sheik Jarrah since 1948. Now they have not only been evicted, but have watched Jewish families being shown the property and encouraged to move into a home that for generations they called their own.

These houses are situated in occupied East Jerusalem. The Palestinian families that lived in these buildings did so legally, and their presence is supported by international law. This is encapsulated in UN Security Council resolutions 446 and 478 which call upon Israel not to transfer members of its civilian population into occupied Arab territories or to change the character and status of Jerusalem.

To its discredit, the Israeli legal system – to which Palestinians have limited and unequal access – has been used by some settler groups to claim ownership of property purportedly belonging to Jews prior to 1948. The decisions taken by the Israeli courts have sustained the claims of settlers and offer Palestinians no recourse to reclaim their rights to lost land or property.

My fellow Elder Jimmy Carter was unambiguous in his statement that the eviction of Palestinians such as the Hanouns from East Jerusalem “is a political issue… It’s an attempt by Israel to take over East Jerusalem, which is part of Palestine”. I wholeheartedly agree, and was encouraged to know that several Israeli human rights groups and advocates also agree.

Such enforced evictions are utterly unacceptable; it is no exaggeration to state that this kind of action could be a serious obstacle to a successful negotiation of a two-state solution. The Hanoun family do not have fair and equal access to the Israeli legal system – nor are they the only ones to have been treated this way. The international community and all those in Israel and Palestine who believe in the importance of the rule of law should support their cause and speak out against this infringement of Palestinians’ fundamental human rights.

Evicted Palestinians camp by home taken by settlers

Jihan Abdalla | The Washington Post

25 August 2009

Fresh dates and chicken soup were served up at dusk on the sidewalk in the well-heeled suburb of Sheik Jarrah this week, as the evicted Palestinian al-Ghawi family spent another night camped outside their former home.

Their stone house in Arab east Jerusalem, in a district of consulates and trendy restaurants, is now home to Jewish settlers, who moved in as they were being kicked out on Aug 2.

The furniture and belongings of the seven-member family were tossed on the street. Their neighbor offered shelter.

But the al-Ghawis refuse to give up and go away. On the third day of Ramadan, when the world’s one billion Muslims fast from dawn to dusk, they gathered with a group of supporters for the traditional evening meal.

Eaten exactly at dusk to break a day of fasting, iftar — Arabic for breakfast — is usually a home-cooked meal eaten inside the home.

The al-Ghawis had takeout, on the sidewalk.

Israel annexed East Jerusalem after the 1967 Middle East war, a move never recognized internationally. Some 200,000 Jews now live here, alongside about 250,000 Palestinians.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, asserting a biblical claim to Jerusalem, has said Jews have a right to live anywhere in the city. Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a state they hope to create in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The evicted families are descendants of refugees who came to the area in 1956, according to the Israeli organization Ir Amim, which monitors — and opposes — Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem.

19TH CENTURY

In legal proceedings stretching back to the 1980s, Palestinians have disputed the Jewish claim in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood which has become a focal point of Jewish settler development plans in East Jerusalem.

Israeli police who turned the family out of their home said they were acting on eviction orders issued by an Israeli court, which had upheld a settler organization’s land ownership claim based on 19th-century documents.

Settlers have moved into six other buildings. Armed men guard the stone houses where settlers have hoisted Israeli flags.

Along with Israel’s demolition of what it deems illegal Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, evictions here have become a further irritant in Israel’s relations with Washington, already strained by the dispute over Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied West Bank.

Among supporters of the evicted family on Monday evening was Rafiq al-Husseini, chief of staff of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

“We are here to make sure that they don’t have iftar on their own, that we are in full support and solidarity with them,” he told Reuters in a makeshift protest tent outside the house.

Fifteen minutes before the minaret’s call to eat, Nasser al-Ghawi set the table with packaged food, plastic silverware, and bottled water — a donation from a nearby restaurant.

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammed Hussein, was also present for the symbolic iftar meal and celebration.

“We would like to tell the world that we are here, yes, on the street, but we are in front of it. And we cling to our right to these homes, and we don’t accept an alternative. Eventually, justice must and will come,” he said.

Maysoon al-Ghawi, mother of five, said losing her home has changed her outlook on the future.

“Our dreams and our plans for the future have all been canceled,” she said, cradling two-year-old Sarah.

Ramadan, she said, is supposed to be a stable time for the family to spend time together, the time to buy the children promised toys, and new clothes. Instead, she must go to her neighbor’s home to bathe them and wash their clothes.

“I feel incompetent and incapable of doing anything for my children, because I have nothing left,” she said.

With summer nearly over, and school about to begin, Maysoon said she had still not bought her children’s schoolbooks.

“Where would I put them? On the street?”

(Editing by Douglas Hamilton and Charles Dick)

Plans for largest East Jerusalem settlement filed for approval

Nir Hasson | Ha’aretz

22 August 2009

A plan for the building of a new settlement, Ma’aleh David, in the middle of an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem was filed for approval by the relevant municipal committee at the Jerusalem Municipality. The plan calls for the construction of 104 housing units on the land where the former headquarters of the Judea and Samaria police was housed in the neighborhood of Ras al-Amud.

The new settlement is planned to be connected to an existing Jewish neighborhood, Ma’aleh Zeitim, and together will be occupied by some 200 families, forming the largest Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem.

The plan is being promoted by the right-wing group Elad.

The land on which the new housing is planned was, until 18 months ago, the compound of the Judea and Samaria police headquarters, which has since moved to a new building in Area E-1. Once the police evacuated the area it returned to the control of the Committee of the Bokharan Community, which has held ownership over the property and the structures there since before 1948.

Last week the Committee filed the plans with the local municipal committee for approval.

According to the plan, the former police structure will be razed and replaced by seven structures ranging between four and five stories in height, and incorporating 104 housing units.

The plan involves high-end housing and the complex will include a swimming pool, mini “country club,” community library and parking spaces. A synagogue, kindergartens and a mikveh (Jewish ritual purification bath) are also planned for construction there.

A foot bridge will connect the new settlement with existing ones on the other side of the road. The settlement of Ma’aleh Zeitim across the street currently houses 51 families and in its second phase of development, which is currently being completed, another 66 housing units are being built.

When the two neighborhoods are completed and linked, a Jewish settlement of more than 1,000 people will be situated in the heart of Ras al-Amud, a neighborhood comprised of 14,000 Palestinians.

Officially, the building plans and the request for approval were filed by the Committee of the Bokharan Community, but sources at the Jerusalem Municipality believe settler organizations are behind the project.

The same sources said the plans, as they currently stand, will likely be changed and less units will be built. However, in the long run it will be difficult to prevent the project with the existing statutory measures, since there is no dispute over the ownership of the land, or whether the area is designated for residential construction projects.

Yudith Oppenheimer, the executive director of Ir Amim, a non-governmental group that monitors Jewish settlement activity in East Jerusalem, told Haaretz: “A two-state solution requires provisions for Palestinian building in East Jerusalem. The goal of this plan is to establish facts on the ground on a scale that would thwart such a solution. Advancement of this plan will stoke the flames in Jerusalem and is liable to lead to a Hebronization of the city.”

Left, right-wing camps demonstrate on J’lem building issue

Ronen Medzini | YNet News

17 August 2009

Dozens of right- and left-wing activists gathered outside the Shepherd Hotel, site of a disputed planned Jewish housing project in east Jerusalem, to demonstrate in favor of their two sides of the issue. The planned building on the site evoked angry responses last month from the American administration.

The left-wing protestors gathered under the auspices of the Peace Now movement. The right-wing protestors were joined by rightist Knesset members. The two camps hurled insults at one another. Each side called the other “provocateurs.”

The right-wing activists held signs calling Obama “racist” and accusing Peace Now of encouraging terrorism. The left-wing activists slammed the rightist camp as “fascists.”

The protestors gathered as US Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee arrived at the hotel for dinner with Knesset members, including Tzipi Hotovely (Likud), Uri Ariel (National Union), Michael Ben Ari (National Union), and David Rotem (Yisrael Beiteinu).

MK Arie, whol took part in the right-wing protest outside the hotel, said, “No one will stop this tune. We build and will continue to build in Jerusalem. Whoever wants can protest, but Jerusalem is united. All in all, some 300,000 Jews live today in the east of the city. The Americans don’t want to recognize Gilo, the Western Wall, or the Temple Mount either. They can express their opinion, but ultimately this is our capital city.”

MK Michael Ben Ari added, “Jerusalem is Jewish for all eternity. Our message is unequivocal – Zionism continues to be on the up rise. We praise Huckabee for joining support of our return to Jerusalem. Peace Now members can curse as much as they want, but it won’t work. Zionism will grow and will influence all of the Land of Israel.”

From the leftist camp, Peace Now Secretary General Yariv Oppenheimer said, “We came to say loud and clear that settlement in east Jerusalem is not Obama’s or Europe’s problem, but is the Israeli public’s problem. We must be outraged at the attempt to make Jerusalem indivisible and unsolvable. We came to protest against this and the settlers’ provocations. The hotel is only one step along the way towards their larger plan of commandeering other neighborhoods in east Jerusalem. Our demonstration is against the overall policy.”

Members from the center of the political map also showed up to protest. MK Otniel Schneller (Kadima) said, “Jerusalem is not left and is not right. It belongs to generations past and the generations to come. What I and Kadima represent is a bid to extend our hand to both sides. A controversy can’t be formed over building in Jerusalem in these places. This is the opinion of Kadima. Such is also written in our platform – Jerusalem is unified. The Israeli public and the Americans need to know that there will be no controversy surrounding Jerusalem.”

Huckabee said earlier Monday that the Obama administration was too harsh with Israel on the settlement issue. During a tour of east Jerusalem, he said, “It concerns me when there are some in the United States who would want to tell Israel that it cannot allow people to live in their own country, wherever they want.”